Yesterday Israel celebrated Yom Yerushalayim or Jerusalem Day. It marked the 45th year of the restoration of Jerusalem back into Israeli hands. Hundreds of thousands of tourists have come to participate in the various celebrations going on in this beautiful city today.
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So the captain came to Jonah, and said to him, "What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God; perhaps your God will consider us, so that we may not perish." At this point the captain (who probably worshiped Baal and Yamm, god of the sea) has more faith than Jonah.
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It must have been a bad storm. These men were experienced, hardened sailors who had seen it all at sea. If they were scared, this could have been the first "perfect storm" since Noah's flood. So they started the first interfaith prayer meeting in the Bible, each man crying out to his own god. As the ship groaned and creaked in howling wind and massive waves, and the men threw cargo overboard in a desperate attempt to save it, where was Jonah? On deck helping them? Confidently praying to His own God? Shaking with fear and paralyzed with deep conviction? No, he’s taking a nap down below...
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During the days of the Temple, the Levities were in charge of keeping the Temple holy. So throughout the night, the captain would make his rounds to make sure that those assigned were watching attentively, so that no one would defile the Temple during the night. If a watchman was found sleeping, he was beaten and his garments were set on fire so that he had to return home naked in his shame!
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The Hebrew expression in this verse from Isaiah is rich with meaning. The root "nus" (from the expression "raise up a standard") is related to or sounds like numerous words which mean "sign", "miracle", "to drive away", "to flee", "cause to disappear", "a waving flag". This abundance of meanings in Isaiah's poetic style reveals the multiple dimensions of God's revelation; in this case, the way he deals with evil. The assertion in this word is that the Spirit of YHVH will be powerfully activated when evil comes.
...continue reading this Christian devotionalToday, after noonday prayers at the mosques throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Palestinians will be protesting and leading marches throughout Israel as they call for a day of "Rage" to mark "Nabka Day" which means "Day of the Catastrophe". It marks the day that Israel reclaimed Jerusalem in the 1967 day war.
...continue reading this Christian devotionalAt the beginning of the recent conflict with Hamas, we discovered an app called "red Alert", which we, (along with millions of others around the world), installed on our iPhones. The app sounds an alert warning each time a rocket is fired into Israel, and identifies the city or area where the rocket(s) are expected to land. On the first day of "Operation Protective Edge" we were amazed at how often the alert sounded as hundreds of rockets flew out of Gaza. Driving with friends from the Galilee region back to our home in the Negev, the eerie warning sounded over and over again. With each warning we knew that potentially hundreds of people were in danger. And this has continued day after day for the past 11 days. Even today my phone has gone off incessantly.
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